Heater assembly

Abstract

A heater assembly to be located at a substantially vertical wall for heating air. The heater assembly includes one or more heating elements, and one or more heat transfer elements mounted on the heating element for transferring heat to a column of the air moving substantially upwardly past the heat transfer elements. The column includes an inner portion positioned proximal to the wall and an outer portion positioned distal to the wall. Each heat transfer element is formed to transfer substantially more heat to the outer portion of the column of the air than to the inner portion thereof, to cause the outer portion to rise faster than the inner portion, for at least partially entraining the inner portion with the outer portion, so that at least a part of the inner portion forms a laminar boundary layer flowing along the wall.

Description

[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 363,815, filed Jul. 13, 2010, and incorporates such provisional application in its entirety by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention is related to a heater assembly to be located at a wall in a room.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Natural convection heaters, which usually are positioned on a wall (e.g., baseboard heaters), are well known in the art. Typical baseboard heaters of the prior art are shown in FIGS. 1-3. It will be understood that the prior art baseboard heaters as illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 are simplified, for clarity of illustration. (As will be described, the remainder of the drawings illustrate the present invention.)[0004]The flow of air through a prior art baseboard heater 10 is schematically illustrated in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the known baseboard heater 10 has several fins 12 for transferring heat to air passing over the fins 12. Typically, the fins 12 are heated b...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0025]In another aspect, the invention provides a heat transfer subassembly for transferring heat to a column of air positioned therein. The heat transfer subassembly is located at a substantially vertical wall, and includes one or more heating elements to provide heat, and one or more heat transfer elements for transferring heat from the heating element to an outer portion of the column, located distal to the wall, and to an inner portion of the column, located proximal to the wall. Each heat transfer element is formed to transfer substantially more heat to the outer portion of the column than to the inner portion thereof, to cause the outer portion to rise faster than the inner portion, thereby drawing the inner portion toward the outer portion so that at least a part of the inner portion forms a laminar boundary layer along the wall.

Problems solved by technology

The phenomenon of streaking does not appear to have been well understood in the prior art.

However, this does not appear to be the case.

It is believed that the ribs disrupt the upward flow of warmed air exiting from between the fins (i.e., possibly due to the Coanda effect), causing turbulence in the upwardly flowing warmed air above the ribs which results in the streaking Due to the turbulence, the heated air is directed at least partially towards the wall above the ribs.

In short, although there is much uncertainty about the mechanism or mechanisms that create the streaking, it appears that streaking occurs because the ribs disrupt the upward flow of warm air sufficiently that more turbulence is created at the wall above the ribs than in the intervening regions above the heater.

As noted above, the addition of a “beak” to the basic prior art design appears to result in even more turbulence at the wall, not less.

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